


The Show Must Go On

by Ijustwannaread



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: David Rose is a Dumbass, Domestic, Fluff, M/M, Patrick is Longsuffering, Romance, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-17 21:29:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21650122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ijustwannaread/pseuds/Ijustwannaread
Summary: In which Patrick and David celebrate an anniversary, David's attempt to make it perfect backfires spectacularly, and Patrick saves the day.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Comments: 7
Kudos: 128





	The Show Must Go On

**Author's Note:**

  * For [twinfinite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/twinfinite/gifts).



David woke up on Thursday morning with a dry mouth and face full of musty motel pillow. It tasted like something horrible must have died in his mouth overnight. He tried to pry his eyes open and was immediately assaulted by a sharp jab of pain through his eye sockets. When he swallowed, there was that tell-tale burning in his throat. Yesterday he might have written off the throat scratchiness and general malaise as a fluke, but now the evidence was harder to deny.

Getting sick meant puffy eyes, a gross froggy voice, and sweating straight through dry-clean only cashmere. On the current family budget, a long dry-cleaning tab to address the aforementioned sweatiness was not on the table.

David flopped over as dramatically as was possible in a twin sized bed. He gave out a long, drawn-out groan to precisely no one's benefit.

Fuck. He and Patrick had planned a date for their sixth month anniversary tomorrow night. He had to survive two full days of work before their dinner reservation in Elmdale at a halfway decent restaurant.

David groped for his phone. The second his hand connected with it, it slipped off the bedside table and onto to floor. Alexis shifted in bed, but didn't wake up.

Thank god for soft and moldy motel carpets. David's phone wasn't cracked when he finally unlocked the screen and squinted through his phone's notepad app. He tapped on the note titled “Moira Roses' _The Show Must Go On_ Protocol.”

    * 1 sudafed

    * 2 Advil

    * 1 claritin

    * 1 benadryl

    * 1 DayQuil

    * 1 zinc tablet

    * sunglasses




7:30 am. Time to gather the necessary pharmaceuticals, liberal under-eye concealer, and still make it to the shop fifteen minutes past opening.

* * *

Both Patrick and his customer startled at the sound of several bottles of moisturizer falling in an impressive, cylindrical domino effect. David was looming over them with his hands outstretched delicately and uselessly.

“You see, our product is pretty much flying off the shelves,” Patrick explained to the woman whose candle pillars he had just rang up. She smiled tightly and then turned around to hustle out.

“Right,” Patrick said to himself. He lifted his chin and gave David another long once-over.

“You good over there, or are you just trying out a new floor display method?”

“Ha,” said David. He shot Patrick a face. “Clearly you haven't been shopping in the hottest Tokyo ateliers recently. They've had a lot of success with that method,” David countered as he haphazardly gathered a handful of bottles.

David's obsession with Japanese retail aside, Patrick truly couldn't decipher whether David was kidding or not. Probably a Stevie problem; he could text her about it later. Some might call her ability to call David's bluff a God-given gift.

“Might wanna consider laying off the coffee, too?” Patrick tried.

“Maybe _you_ should consider laying off the coffee,” David retorted.

Patrick smiled despite himself.

\------

Patrick came in the next day brandishing David's precise coffee order like a talisman. He wasn't about to admit it, but he was antsy to make it through the coming eight hours of work so they could get to their dinner reservation. David did even worse with delayed gratification, so the coffee was more or less a placation to entice him to make it to at least lunch without incident.

Patrick double checked his watch in a brief panic when he walked up and saw the open sign in the window. It was 8:55. He cautiously opened the door. David was at the cash register, wearing pair of delicate black cat eye sunglasses and clumsily unraveling a roll of quarters.

“Am I in the matrix?” Patrick joked. He instantly regretted it when David jumped in surprise, and dropped the roll of quarters with a clatter.

“I'm sorry?” David said, primly. He smoothed his sweater to his hips as though that would help him regain his composure.

“Don't worry about it,” Patrick said. “For you,” he handed David his coffee. David delicately moved one stray quarter into the correct spot, and then accepted the gift with a mouthed “thank you.”

“You know what, why don't I get a head start on the inventory? You look like you've totally got a handle on the register,” Patrick said. David melted to the counter in a half bow.

“You are a god amongst men,” David said.

“Don't get too used to it,” Patrick cautioned. “I just want to miss some of that wild traffic on the way to Antonio's tonight.” He brushed a hand over David's shoulder as he made his way to the back room. He turned back just in time to catch David blowing him a kiss. He managed to steel his face in time to fake a whole hearted scoff, but his heart was still leaping when he flipped the page to the correct spreadsheets.

Save a short lunch break courtesy of a timely-delivered sandwhich from David, Patrick only emerged from number crunching hell when the sun was starting to set. Feeling like a bear coming out of a long hibernation, Patrick noticed that David was still wearing his sunglasses in the dim afternoon light. He was also barely propping himself on the counter, but his foot was tapping nonstop.

Patrick felt his heart drop sickeningly. This was definitely David Rose Weirdness, but in a new and disconcerting category.

He slid a sly hard across the small of David's back and around his waist. David pulled himself to attention. His sunglasses slipped precariously down his nose.

“I was awake!” He mumbled.

“You know, I really wasn't doubting it before you said that,” Patrick said. Although it was hard to say beneath the sunglasses, David looked like he was stuck in limbo between fight or flight mode.

Patrick gestured to reach for David's sunglasses.

“May I?” He glanced at David for affirmation. David recoiled delicately.

“If you keep looking like one of the Men in Black I think it might scare off some customers,” Patrick said.

“Okay, I got that reference and I resent that insinuation,” David said, but conceded and allowed Patrick to gently slip the sunglasses off. He immediately squinted in the natural light of the store. He looked tired.

He glanced out the window to see if anyone looked liable to walk in. No prospective patrons in view, Patrick hazarded to take another step closer to David.

“Are you okay?” He asked. He kept his voice studiously gentle and level.

“Yes,” David said, quickly. “Of course. Yes, of course.” He pursed his lips and then looked away.

“Okay, except one thing: is it possible to overdose on Sudafed?”

“What?” Patrick asked. He took a step back and tried to translate David's facial expression into common English.

“It's just my heart keeps doing this weird thing where it feel like it's going twice as fast as normal. What do heart palpitations feel like?” David pressed two fingers to the pulse point in his neck and looked anywhere but at Patrick.

“What are you talking about, David?” Patrick asked. “Sorry, what did you take too much of, and what do you mean by too much, exactly?”

David pursed his lips and squeezed his eyes shut. He shook his head back and forth in slow motion.

“You know what, forget I said anything,” David flapped his hands wildly as though it might distract Patrick from this unsettling line of conversation.

“Oh, nope – talk to me David?” Patrick said. He looped his arms around David and tried to pretend that he was doing it to be sweet rather than in an attempt to wrangle his boyfriend into staying put and heeding his request.

“Right, so I may have taken maybe a few too many OTC pills today, and now I'm not 100% sure I'm not going to stroke out,” David said. He was practically vibrating in Patrick's arms.

Patrick looked up at David searchingly. His face looked a bit flushed, and he was ever so slightly sweaty around his hairline. Patrick cupped David's face in his hands for a moment, and he could practically feel David's pulse projecting his quick heartbeats through his heated skin. Patrick felt his own heart start to pick up the pace.

“How long has this been going on?” He asked. David, still captive, was silent for a couple of drawn out moments before relenting.

“Mmmm, this morning or maybe yesterday,” he said, looking at his shoes. He pulled Patrick in closer. “You know, I think I was just imagining things,” David said. He kneaded one side of his face in a way Patrick assumed was meant to be adorable and distractingly bashful. Rather, he looked like he was in the middle of a very futile attempt to work out a tension headache. It was still cute, of course, but predominately worrying.

“Oh, would you look at the time! Looks like we can close up and get to Antonio's and still have time to maybe park the car somewhere first...” David ran a finger down Patrick's arm from his shoulder blade to his wrist. Patrick retaliated by holding David at arms length by the shoulders and fixing him with a stony look.

“You've been sick for at least two days and I didn't even notice?” He asked. David grimaced.

“No, nope – see I thought I might be slightly under the weather for a half second- maybe less - but then I used my mother's time-tested method for not being sick. Which apparently only has a 50% success rate,” David said. Patrick finally released his grip, if only to drag a hand down his own face in sheer exasperation.

“No offense, David, but your using one of your mom's home remedies does not instill confidence.” David nodded absently.

“Can we just go now?” He pleaded.

Patrick paused for a moment.

“Sure.”

\----

“Um, Patrick?”

“Yes, David?” Patrick pulled the car smoothly into a parking space, and braced himself for impact.

“Did Antonio's undergo a truly unfortunate rebrand, or -”

“Welcome to Elmdale Urgent Care. Hurry up, they close at 8.”

“Noooo.”

“Yes. Sorry, I had to make an executive decision when you said, and I quote, “I'm not 100% sure I'm not going to stroke out.”

“But -”

Patrick cut him off with a swift kiss on the lips, and then leaned over further to push the passenger side door open.

No further arguments were made.

\--------

“So, do you think we can still make our reservation?” David asked from the passenger seat of Patrick's Toyota.

Patrick almost missed a stop sign.

“David, did you not literally just tell me that your blood pressure was crazy high? We're going home,” Patrick said.

“But they have lobster ravioli-” David started. Some of the congestion was coming into his voice, and it was painful to hear.

“I already ordered takeout while we were in the waiting room,” Patrick said.

“I love you,” David said, blearily. Patrick's heart clenched, despite himself.

\-------

When Patrick came back from the approximately ninety seconds that it took to pay for the Chinese takeout he'd ordered, David had already completely wilted into his couch. He'd also managed to produce a bottle of red wine from his bag and place it suggestively on the coffee table in front of him.

He went straight to the cabinets and heaped a liberal amount of rice and sesame chicken onto plates. Then he ran the faucet until the water verged on icy and poured a glass. Finally, he opened a bottle of a brand of beer that David had gone on record describing tasting like as “golden dishwater.”

Patrick carefully balanced the plates and drinks and set them all on the coffee table. He turned off the main light fixture in favor of the mood-lighting of the few lamps he had acquired since his move. It was less to create ambiance than to hopefully alleviate the painful headache-squinting that David did as soon as they had arrived.

Upon the change of lighting, David heroically managed to extricate himself long enough to try at opening the wine. Luckily for Patrick's case, it was corked.

“Humor me?” Patrick requested, and slid the glass of water closer to David. David eyed it suspiciously, but took a couple of long pulls. Then he coughed once, deeply. In an attempt to recover, he raised the glass and looked Patrick in the eye.

“To one year,” he said. Patrick felt a pool of warmth in the pit of his stomach, despite the circumstances.

“One amazing year,” he affirmed. They clinked glasses, David taking another drink of tap water, and Patrick enjoyed a blissful sip of lager.

Patrick passed David a pair of chopsticks from the bag.

“China Delight?” David asked.

“Beijing House, actually,” Patrick said. Of the two certainly more overpriced, but undeniably better.

“Hmmm, this may shape out to be a celebration after all.”

They both dove into the lukewarm food with enthusiasm.

Well, Patrick's enthusiasm lasted until he realized that David wasn't approaching the Chinese food with his typical zeal. Once he'd made it through just enough chicken to properly stomach some meds, Patrick decided to change his tactics. With as much caution as humanly possible.

“You want to move to the bed?” Patrick asked, eyeing David carefully.

David glanced over at the bed and blanched. Patrick realized David probably thought he was insinuating he wanted to move on to a steamier part of the night. Not that he himself wasn't currently lamenting that they would have to take a rain-check on what he had anticipated would have been a lovely moment, but Patrick had abandoned all hope of that long ago.

“I mean, do you want to watch Netflix in bed? We could watch that Beyonce documentary you've been talking about,” Patrick offered. David melted back against the couch in obvious relief that might have been deeply insulting had it not matched Patrick's own perfectly.

“It's so far, though,” David whined, swallowing and looking distrustfully at the ten feet of space between him and the bed.

“Come on, David. I think you can handle it,” Patrick said. He stood up and extended both of his arms. He flicked a half smile when he remembered David was defenseless against an opportunity to test out the strength of his boyfriend's forearms. He allowed Patrick to pull him to a shaky standing position, then trudged towards the bed under his own steam.

David sat down heavily on the side of the bed, even paler than before. He closed his eyes and breathed methodically.

“Proud of you,” Patrick teased. David opened one eye like a cat and shot him a side-eye. Patrick kissed his forehead. “Stay there,” he commanded, fully aware the David had no plans to do anything else.

Businesslike, David pulled David's softest pajamas from his drawer, then reached into his own drawer for the oversized hoodie that he loved to wear on the coldest winter nights. He laid out the clothes on the bed, then, without pausing to ask, started to unlace David's sneakers. Once he pulled them off, he returned to pull David's sweater off.

“I thought you wanted to watch a movie,” David murmured, running his hands suggestively up and down the small of Patrick's back. Patrick reached somewhere deep in his reserves of restraint, and caught David's hands before they went any further south.

“That is correct,” he said, sounding only marginally strangled. “You can handle the rest, I'm sure. I'm going to change, too.” David pouted, but Patrick turned and rummaged through his very organized dresser to find a suitable set of clothes for himself. He collected himself as his hands passed over various faded t-shirts. By the time he'd slipped into a pair of flannel pants and a long-sleeved shirt from his freshman year of college, David had thankfully pulled on his own silk pajamas and was eyeing the hoodie as though it might be radioactive.

“You know you want to,” Patrick told him as he grabbed his laptop to pull up Netflix. David swallowed painfully.

“I am at least eighty-five percent certain that you would never be attracted to me again if you saw me in that,” David declared. Patrick set his laptop on the blankets, and sat down on his side of the bed. He sat up against the headboard and opened his arms for David to fit inside. Stiffly, David did. Patrick had to let out a sigh of relief when David's familiar warm weight settled against him.

“Nothing like that is going to make you less attractive to me, David,” he said. “You know that, right?” David scoffed, and then cleared his throat. Patrick could feel his shoulders tense.

“David,” Patrick warned. “Would you look at me for a minute?”

David bit his lip, but complied. He raised his eyebrows expectantly.

“Why didn't you tell me you were sick?” Patrick wished that some of the hurt hadn't managed to creep into his voice, but it did. This was not meant to be a guilt-trip. David looked down at the blanket and seemed to be searching for an acceptable answer.

“I didn't want to ruin our anniversary,” David said, thickly.

“I'm pretty sure the only way you could ruin our anniversary would be if you ran away to join an Amish farm again,” Patrick said. David sat up quickly.

“I can't believe Alexis told you about that!” David groaned.

“It was actually your mother - she's quite the storyteller.” Patrick choked down a laugh. David let out a noise that defined all definition.

“Not the point,” Patrick cut in. “Would you believe me if I told you I don't find you any less cute even when you're all pale and sweaty and-”

“Yep, I get the picture-” David cut him off by burying his head into the crook of Patrick's neck.

“Hey, do you believe me?” Patrick asked again. There were a couple of beats, then he felt David nod slowly, not moving from his position.

He could work with that. David was more realistically a work-in-progress in the emotional and physical vulnerability department, but, for now, all Patrick wanted to do was wrap him in a blanket and hold on to him to dear life.

And Patrick was always a man of action, so that's exactly what he did.

**Author's Note:**

> There you have it folks. I wrote yet another gratuitous story with a slightly larger helping of fluff than usual. I love this show and I couldn't help but contribute my own two cents on the most heartwarming pairing probably ever. It's the best comfort food. 
> 
> Please drop a comment - I always, always appreciate it!!


End file.
